


I Feel Like I Saw You Dead

by ktfics



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Oumota Week, Recovery, Stuck in a Small Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:25:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktfics/pseuds/ktfics
Summary: “Goddamnit!” Kaito’s fist clangs against the elevator doors once more. “How much fuckin’ blood money has Danganronpa made over the years, and they still can’t afford to put us in a hospital with working fuckin’ elevators?”Kokichi grips onto the handles of his wheelchair a little tighter and closes his eyes. “Yes, well, I’m sure if you just yell a little louder, the nurses will come running, Momota-chan.”--Kaito, Kokichi, and the honesty that comes with being alone together.





	I Feel Like I Saw You Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the oumota week day one prompt stuck in a small space. Follow me on tumblr @dykeenvy to talk oumota!

“Goddamnit!” Kaito’s fist clangs against the elevator doors once more. “How much fuckin’ blood money has Danganronpa made over the years, and they still can’t afford to put us in a hospital with working fuckin’ elevators?”

Kokichi grips onto the handles of his wheelchair a little tighter and closes his eyes. “Yes, well, I’m sure if you just yell a little louder, the nurses will come running, Momota-chan.”

They’ve been in here for at least 20 minutes by now. Kokichi has been counting down the seconds in the back of his head, doing his best to tune out Momota’s frustration and all the unspoken words between them.

“Fuck!” Kaito exclaims once more, his voice echoing unpleasantly in the closed space they’ve been confined to.

Kokichi doesn’t respond. If he holds in his breath, he can almost trick himself into thinking that the cold, sharp scent of metal doesn’t surround him right now. If he holds in his breath and closes his eyes and clenches his hands until his fingers go numb he can almost pretend he’s still a corpse.

The seconds tick by as time continues to run off into nowhere, and Kokichi exhales out all the air he was holding in. He feels dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with the lack of oxygen.

He opens his eyes once more, blearily blinking through the dull red emergency lights ricocheting off the elevator walls. Kaito is staring at him, looking like a cornered animal instead of a boy and not saying anything at all. They’re both covered in it, bathed in the red glow, and if Kokichi squints just right the light pools around Momota’s mouth and his forearm.

The silence between them is heavy, smothering; a living thing. The only noise that exists in this space, the only noise that has any impact at all, is the low, inconsistent hum of the lighting system, like a heart beating too fast.

Kokichi feels a spasm run down his back.

“Hey, man,” Kaito speaks, his voice reverent, like they’re in a mausoleum and not an elevator. It is just an elevator, after all; nothing more, nothing less. “We’re gonna get out of this soon.”

Kokichi tilts his gaze up just a little, and the red light shifts to halo around Momota’s head. When Kaito turns away from him to grit his teeth and look down, his hair breaks up the illusion and the halo splits into two devil horns instead.

Either way, Kaito is something close to beautiful and Kokichi is not going to survive meeting him.

“You’re a wonderful liar, Momota-chan, have I ever told you that before?” Kaito shakes his head and presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids.

Kokichi watches the energy thrum through Kaito’s body, watches as everything he can’t admit out loud crawls up and out of his throat and takes a bite out of him, their claws latching into his shirt and digging into his open wounds. He watches as Kaito rears back and slams his knuckles into the elevator doors, like he could just shake them all off if he hits hard enough, like all of his problems will be taken down with him if he just self-destructs well enough.

Kaito’s fist collides with the walls once, twice more, before Kokichi remembers that they will have to live through the next day, and the one after that, and that the blood they spill is no longer some ephemeral, insignificant symptom of their imminent fall from grace.

Kokichi reaches up to tug on Kaito’s sleeve and remind him that they can no longer afford to destroy themselves.

Kaito stops abruptly, body folding in on itself as he cradles his now-bruised fist in his other hand. “Fuck. I can’t be in here.” He inhales a shaky breath, the sound of it rattling through his ribcage. “We can’t be here again.”

Kokichi retracts back into himself once more, unable to provide Kaito with the response he’s looking for, unable to gaze upon the boy in pain because of him once again, and brings his hand up to tap an uneven, staccato beat against the side of the elevator instead. For a second, he thinks it odd that all his fingers are still so nicely rounded. For a second, he has to resist the urge to stick them down his throat just to make sure his guts are still in place.

Kokichi wrenches his gaze away from the metallic walls and down towards the carpeted floor. The wavy pattern is just vague and amorphic enough to warp into an ugly stain; the red emergency lights absorb into the carpet and the color of it becomes familiar in the same way that a repeated nightmare is familiar. 

So he looks away from the carpet and the walls closing in on them and back to Kaito, who had been doing his best to pace in the 15 square feet they’ve been granted before Kokichi decided to stare at him.

It is the first time they’ve been alone together since waking up. It is the first time Kokichi has seen Kaito without Saihara and Harukawa hanging off of him. It is the first time they will be able to speak to one another without witnesses since the hangar.

Momota breathes in once more, and finally acknowledges all of the unspoken confessions clinging to his skin without trying to light himself on fire to be rid of them. 

“Y’know…” Kaito admits, very quietly, “I wanted to live.” The amount of shame lining his words is thick enough that Kokichi almost expects to see it pour out of him like blood. Like ichor.

Kaito clears his throat, and starts again. “In the hangar. I wanted to live. I wanted us both to live-” Kaito laughs, then, but there’s no joy in it. There can’t be, not while they’re still here. “It was so fucking stupid, I kept waiting for- for someone to burst into the room and save us. And tell us that we didn’t have to go through with it, that stupid fucking plan of yours.”

Kokichi frowns, and has to resist digging his fingernails into his thighs just to force some sensation out of them. “It wasn’t stupid. It was-” He feels defensive, for no real reason. After all, they had failed, hadn’t they? He still ends his sentence with “It was a good plan.”

“It was great,” Kaito agrees, his voice cracking on the last syllable. “And it was horrible. It was the worst thing that ever happened to us, but-” Kaito leans forward and grips Kokichi’s shoulders, hard, and Kokichi is reminded yet again that this body is his own. That he still lives here, even though he’s past his eviction date. He forces himself to gaze at Momota’s bloody knuckles without flinching, without ignoring the reality of their pain. “It was also the best thing that ever happened to us. Do you get it?”

Kokichi nods, slowly, reluctant to let this little truth slip out of his mouth. It feels worse than all the others he’s kept trapped inside of him through the years, squirming its way into his heart and beating against his ribcage like it’s some kind of door, like if he acknowledges it for even a second his body will open up and spread out beneath him once more.

“I wanted to live,” he finally agrees, “But dying was- good, for a little while.” Kokichi feels another spasm run down his spine. Kaito’s hands are too hot on his skin, even through his clothing.

Kaito nods back at him, almost frantically, and Kokichi decides that even if there’s no halo around his head, Momota still looks good like this, backlit and brave and so, so unbearably human. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Dying, I mean. I can’t talk about it with anyone else. Yeah, it hurt and it sucked and I don’t wanna go through that again anytime soon, but we knew we were… alive, I guess. Because of it. Or in spite of it, or whatever.”

“I think- I think dying made us a little too honest, Momota-chan.” Kokichi lifts up a hand to cup the edge of Kaito’s face, right along his jawline, maybe in some tender display of intimacy; maybe just to check his pulse.

“Yeah? I think it just made us realize all of our lies.” Kokichi tilts his head at Kaito and drums his fingers against his neck in that same staccato beat from before, the feeling of body heat slowly fading out the cold metallic sensation of the walls surrounding them. It was like this in the hangar, too; the only thing that chased away the inevitability of the press was their desperate, last-minute attempt at a closeness that had nothing to do with violence, if only for a little while. They didn’t kiss, no. But they could have.

So many could haves, so many possibilities that they now have all the time in the world to chase down.

“Isn’t that the same thing, Momota-chan? Being honest and admitting a lie?” Kaito contemplates his words for a second. 

“I guess. But the therapist says I still have to work on that shit- being vulnerable, not putting on a face for the others, whatever.” Kokichi laughs, and imagines that each exhale is strong enough to expand the tiny box they’ve been stuck in.

“Funny; she tells me the same thing. Looks like we’ve got a lot more in common than we’re supposed to.” Kaito smooths a hand down Kokichi’s right arm, and he can feel his wound start to close up underneath the touch, the leftover rot slowly disappearing. He’s almost too gentle; it makes Kokichi shiver.

“That’s definitely the worst part of this,” Kaito gives a small, hesitant smile, “Being similar to you in any way.”

Kokichi mirrors his smile right back at him, though his is a bit more of a shit-eating grin. “Didn’t I just tell you? You’re a wonderful liar, Momota-chan. Besides, I think we made a pretty good team, didn’t we?”

Kaito leans back a bit, and wiggles his fingers in a so-so gesture at Kokichi’s face. “I think we could do better.”

The elevator lurches, suddenly and without warning, and for a second, Kokichi squeezes his eyes shut tight and braces for impact, attempts to flatten himself out and let his limbs go numb before the press can do it for him.

But the impact never comes, aside from Kaito gripping tighter onto his shoulder to keep him steady.

The red light blinks away. The elevator doors slide open. It’s night by now, and the shine of the moon gleams along the floor tiles and slides towards them as if it were extending a hand to beckon them forwards.

“Hey,” Kaito starts, his voice shaky and unsure but still determined as he grabs onto the handles of Kokichi’s wheelchair to take them both back to their rooms. “I don’t- I don’t know if things can be better in this shitty fuckin’ world we woke up in, or if I’m ever gonna stop thinking about dying and what it did to us. But… I’ve got a one-on-one with the therapist tomorrow. Do you wanna come with me?”

Kokichi hums, and pretends to think over his offer. “Am I allowed to tell the therapist that I hate your guts and that you’re terribly mean to me so she offers me more candy?”

“Fuck no,” Kaito barks out decisively. “You can just have mine, I hate sweet shit.”

Kokichi smiles. This partnership may prove to be successful just yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank u so much for reading, comments are appreciated!!


End file.
